Jacqui Lawrence - Old Bonalbo's silver medallist

What were you doing when Jacqui Lawrence clinched an Olympic silver medal in the Slalom Kayak event in Beijing 2008?

Many people around Australia, especially on the Northern Rivers of NSW ,were jumping around a local watering hole, toasting the success of our region's latest sporting hero.

Jacqui herself had been doing something similar when we finally caught up with her on Monday morning, two and a half days after the biggest day of her life.

"Absolutely whirlwind. I've had hardly any sleep and I don't care," she said.

It's been a similar story in her home town of Old Bonalbo. ABC North Coast's regular weather watcher for the Bonalbo area, John, called in to tell us what the weekend was like in a tiny town that suddenly found itself the focus of national attention.

"The media has descended in this little place like you wouldn't believe," he said.

According to John, "A Sydney based newspaper wanted a photo of her supporters so with a couple of hour's notice and a bit of a phone around we had a group photo of supporters taken up at Old Bonalbo on Saturday afternoon and we had 92 people turn up for the photo out of a population of about a hundred."

Jacqui's is quite literally a backyard success story.

Her father built a dam on their property that doubled as a training facility for Jacqui and her sisters Kate and Ros. She had to defeat one of them, Kate, to win a place on the Australian team.

Jacqui explains, "We live on the top of a pretty steep hill and at the bottom he had a bit of a dam built and of course he had the excuse that he needed it for the cows but I don't think that was the real reason. So we strung up some slalom gates over that so we could train when we weren't driving to whitewater."

So there lies the secret to Olympic success. Practice until the cows come home!